IDC along with Symantec, who are known for their Norton Antivirus series, conducted a survey among 400 home Internet users, the first of its kind across four cities here.

The survey was conducted to determine the awareness and attitude of home Internet users. It showed a high awareness rate of the terms, 'virus', 'hacking' and 'spamming'. 48% of these users were subject to virus attacks, 24% to hack attacks and 77% received spam mail. The survey also put to death premonitions about users not being in the know of the various new viruses. 70% were aware of the different types of viruses circulating around the Internet.

The survey revealed that dial-up connections dominate the scene but this will soon recede with the advent of broadband connections and the top few Internet activities are emailing, chatting, online reading, online transactions/trading. Interestingly 31% of these users also use the Internet to SMS and download ring tones.

The survey categorised 400 subjects into five different groups viz., Novice, Concerned, Secluded, Go-by-book and Extra careful. These five categories determined how security conscious the public was. The most security conscious was the Extra careful group, who kept away from all suspicious activity and regularly changed their passwords. This Extra careful group had also been exposed to previous virus attacks. The least security conscious group was from the Novice category.

The amount of high rated threats seen last year have equalled the amount of threats witnessed in the first half of this year alone, thus Norton suggests that only anti-virus is not sufficient for protection against threats. It claims that it's 'Internet Security 2004 Professional' can give complete protection to the home user.

Simple steps that were recommended to secure oneself were: - Never click on attachments from unknown sources. - Choose difficult-to-guess passwords. Use alphanumeric passwords. - Never store passwords on your PC. - Make backup copies of personal data. - Install good anti-virus software. - Set up a firewall. - Set up a Spam blocking programme. - Turn off and remove unnecessary programmes. - Update and regularly download security patches.